Austin Osman Spare

Forgotten and famous at the same time, the artist Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was briefly the enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, before ending up poor and obscure in a South London basement.

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Since then he has been a shadowy cult figure, better known to occultists than art historians, but now his star is rising again. Spare’s biographer Phil Baker will discuss his jinxed career, his involvement with mysticism, sorcery and surrealism, and the extensive mythologisation of his life that has taken place since his death.

Forgotten and famous at the same time, the artist Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was briefly the enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, before ending up poor and obscure in a South London basement. Since then he has been a shadowy cult figure, better known to occultists than art historians, but now his star is rising again. Spare’s biographer Phil Baker will discuss his jinxed career, his involvement with mysticism, sorcery and surrealism, and the extensive mythologisation of his life that has taken place since his death.

The author of the acclaimed biography Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist (Strange Attractor 2011), Phil Baker has also written books on absinthe, Dennis Wheatley, Samuel Beckett and William S Burroughs. He has recently edited, with Antony Clayton, the forthcoming Lord of Strange Deaths: The Fiendish World of Sax Rohmer (Strange Attractor, 2015).